April 5, 2024 • 44 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 153: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: On January 15th the Biden Campaign let loose the results of its internal polling. They insisted, at what was for them the nadir of the campaign, that there would be an O.S.M.… an oh-spit-moment… only they didn’t say spit… at which point the undecideds who had convinced themselves that Trump would NOT be the Republican nominee and thus they would have a different alternative, would realize Trump HAD GOTTEN the Republican nomination and… oh spit. And all the undecideds would break to Biden.
New Marquette Law School Poll, among likely voters: Biden 52 Trump 48. Likely Voters. The Marquette Law School Poll, February 15? Marquette Law School Poll: Likely Voters, TRUMP 52 Biden 48.
An eight point swing in 43 days. Oh spit!
B-Block (19:40) and C-Block ) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 45 years ago at this moment, a week or so after I had met Bob Iger and got his advice on how to get started in television, the letter that would change my career and my life, was somewhere, in transit, between New York City and Ithaca, New York. The story of the man who sent it, and why what he wrote mattered so much: The Lou Adler Letter.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Biden
fifty two Trump forty eight likely voters. New Marquette Law
(00:29):
School poll impressive, not decisive, but more impressive with this
context noted Marquette Law School poll ending February fifteenth, Likely
voters Trump fifty two, Biden forty eight. So that's Biden
minus four to Biden plus four in forty three days,
(00:50):
an eight points wing in forty three days. Marquette defines
its likely voters as registered and claiming they are certain
to vote. Broaden it out to all registered and it's
still a Biden's swing. Okay, I'll say it. It's joementum.
Among all registered voters in the Marquette poll, it is
(01:12):
now fifty to fifty. In the middle of February, it
was Trump fifty one to forty nine. It was on
January fifteenth of this year when internal Biden polling data leaked,
or at least the conclusions thereof leaked, And as I
will go into depth, in a moment, they insisted, at
what was for them the nadir of this campaign, that
(01:35):
there would be an osm an oh spit moment. Only
they didn't say spit, not at which Biden or Biden
supporters spat, but a point at which the undecideds, who
had convinced themselves that somehow Trump would not be the
Republican nominee and thus that they would have a different
(01:57):
alternative coming from the GOP, that they would realize, oh, spit,
Trump has gotten the Republican nomination. And it was the
firm belief inside Biden headquarters that when that moment occurred,
when he clinched the nomination, the Republican nomination, all the
(02:17):
undecideds would break for Biden, which seems to be the
case as a fascinating aside, a moronically fascinating aside. In
the Marquette poll, Trump is still thrashing the president by
sixty four to thirty six. In one demographic sixty four
(02:40):
to thirty six. Trump among those not registered to vote, Hey, dementia, Jay,
everybody who isn't voting is voting for you. I know
they could still register them, but that would involve spending
(03:01):
less money on lawyers. Apropos of the good Biden polling
news This from the Washington Post. Isaac Arnsdorf in a
new book, The other key besides the O spit moment.
The messaging routing back to November two, twenty twenty one,
when the Democrats ran the rather hapless and opportunistic and
(03:23):
generic Terry mccaulliffe for governor of Virginia because he'd been
such a good behind the scenes operator, and they were
convinced all they had to do to win was to
pin Trump to their bland Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin. And
it never happened, and mccauliffe lost a nominally Democratic state
in the immediate aftermath of the Trump Insurrection, and he
(03:46):
lost it by two hundred and sixty thousand votes to
a guy in a parka vest. In his new book,
mister Arnsdorf says Anita Dunn of a White House promptly
convened the key guys from four different campaign consulting and
media groups to figure out why that happened. And the
(04:07):
answer was the messaging, Like the Democrats don't have any messaging,
so they put it out for research. They researched it,
and the polling came back thusly, eighty percent of American
voters of all kinds knew what MAGA was, and half
of that eighty percent had an unfavorable opinion of what
(04:31):
MAGA was. Voters used terms like dangerous, divisive, extreme, power hungry, maga. Now,
how could you paint Republicans all Republicans as mega hmm
maga and Republicans maga and Republicans knowing upper hierarchy Dems,
(04:55):
they probably workshopped Republican megas for eight weeks, then Hoopsucker,
then the Hudswinger before somebody said fellas fellas, fellas, I
got something Maga Republicans. That's when and why Biden began
(05:18):
calling them that Maga Republicans. And when Even Politico, which
reported this, says, and the rest was history. A corner
has been turned. By the way, go and do this,
google Maga Republicans in quotes Maga Republicans. There are one million,
(05:40):
three hundred and forty thousand results, the other evidence that
the rest might indeed be history. Gamblers, now they are
just as flawed in terms of predictive quality as pollsters
and analysts are. The gamblers were still heavily betting on
Hillary Clinton the morning of the twenty sixteen elections. Still
(06:02):
this is worth a note. On March third, betting at
a thing called polymarket on who will win the twenty
twenty four US presidential election was Trump fifty four percent,
Biden thirty two percent. Betting at polymarket this Wednesday was
Trump forty seven percent, Biden forty three percent. Betting at
(06:28):
polymarket last night was Trump forty six percent, Biden forty
four percent. Again, this is the result of how people gamble. Still,
it is a good measure of what people think is
happening or what they believe is beginning to happen. And
(06:49):
it is usually dispassionate. It is concerned only with money.
And in thirty two days, Trump lost eight points and
Biden gained twelve points. In this polymarket, a twenty point
swing in thirty two days is a twenty point swing,
and I don't care if it's in the polymarket or
(07:10):
in the mini market. So that's what I was thinking
about while I was unconscious in the hospital yesterday, the
minor medical procedure, my colonoscopy. I was there when he
made his hemorrhoid joke at the nineteen eighty World Series.
So I think I'm entitled to paraphrase George Bread of
(07:32):
the Kansas City Royals. Well, there it is your proof
that I am a perfect asshole. All good, except for,
you know, the being unconscious part. So as I think
I may have warned you three times this week, today's
podcast is truncated. In fact, what you have heard is
(07:55):
all the new there is today. But I wanted to
do a redux of that first bit from two and
a half months ago. And people still remembered who Dean
Phillips used to be, and the White House was answering
not with panic but with the O Spit moment. And
I also wanted to recap last week's polling news that
very much lines up with this stuff from the Marquette Pole.
(08:16):
And if you don't want to hear it again, I
get it. I think it's insightful, not what I said,
but what they said. Plus I'm really tired. So here's
all the new ahead in me because I had other
things in me that we had to get out too.
And I'll see you with an all new on Monday
night Tuesday morning. Till then, goodnight and good luck. Play
(08:41):
the tape. Now, there is the possibility that if and
when Trump nails down the Republican nomination, the Biden Trump
race will suddenly tilt strongly towards Joe Biden. CNN had
a story, the importance of which flew right over the
head of every TV political pundit and over the head
(09:03):
of CNN's owner. Orders quoting sources with access to Biden
internal polling and research that may explain what a lot
of us have seen as well. Just visualize that dog
in the blazing room. This is fine meme again. Biden
campaign data indicates that among undecided voters, three out of
(09:27):
four of them do not seem to believe that the
Republican nominee will be Trump. CNN quotes one senior Biden
official as saying, you can't conceive of how tuned out
these folks are. Try me anyway. Another quote, apparently from
(09:48):
a different Biden campaign official, the realization will soon come
quote oh shit, it is an election between that guy
and that guy unquote. Three out of four undecideds are
politically illiterate and or in Trump denial impossible, impossible. The
(10:10):
Morris Berman book The Twilight of American Culture includes this.
I'm quoting a survey taken in October nineteen ninety six
revealed that one in ten voters did not know who
the Republican or Democratic nominees for president were. That was
nineteen ninety six, less than one month before the nineteen
ninety six election, by which point the Democratic nominee, if
(10:32):
you've forgotten, had been president for three years and nine months. Now.
This is a guess. I'm going way out on a
limb here, no empirical evidence, but even with the invention
of social media, I'm gonna guess that voter imbecility has
not improved since nineteen ninety six. So when a Yugov
(10:54):
poll from a week ago today had it Biden forty three,
Trump forty three, that's fourteen percent undecided or other, and
maybe one or two out of every ten of them
couldn't really place the names Biden and Trump. Plus per
the Biden research, seven or eight out of every ten
(11:16):
of them still really didn't believe Trump will be on
the ballot. Trump and Trump leaning undecided fifty, Biden and
(11:37):
Biden leaning undecideds fifty. And the Harvard Harris Pole, the
Harvard Harris Poll, about which a Harvard School newspaper columnist
wrote on Tuesday, Harvard should break up with the Harris
Pole because the university is quote lending its name to
a methodologically flawed poll that often promotes a right wing
(11:57):
political agenda. So forget the Olberman caveat numbers of undecideds
and margins of era. The Harris Poles leans right. Yet
even it has this race a tie, and moreover, with
the spoiler candidates and with the undecideds undecided, it has
it forty thirty seven Trump and the eight percent undecided
(12:19):
leaning sixty one percent to Biden, including fifty eight percent
of independent undecideds and forty one percent of Republican undecided.
And that is, after all, exactly what the Biden internal
metrics told the president's campaign months ago, and that is
exactly why they did not panic when everybody else panicked,
(12:40):
because they stuck to the mantra that the minute Trump
actually got the Republican nomination, the undecideds and the independents
would have their O spit moment and break for Biden.
Even in the right leaning Harvard Harris Pole or as
it is colloquially referred to the Mark Penn Personal Vendetta Pole,
(13:00):
and in the Bloomberg Morning Consult poll of swing states,
which it was the talk of politics when Trump was
ahead everywhere, but it is not the talk of politics
at this moment because in the new one Biden went
up in six out of the seven states, leading in Wisconsin,
tied in Michigan, tied in Pennsylvania, minus two in Nevada.
(13:21):
So if you looked a skance at last night's fundraiser
down the block from me at Radio City, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost and the twenty five
million dollar money bomb expected from the simultaneous appearance of
Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, don't look a skance.
How much would you pay to not live under a
(13:42):
Trump dictatorship. More to the point, if the Harvard Harris
poll is sketchy at best, then its rationales are sketchy
at best. But Harvard Harris said it saw no bump
after Biden stated the union, but it did see a
bump after Biden's first wall to wall ad blitz. And yes,
(14:02):
it's the economy, or more correctly, the perception of the economy.
And yes, you should be able to win a campaign
against a lunatic whose brain is leaking out of his
ears and is running on a platform of fascism, despotism, revenge,
a national abortion ban, and cutting social security and medicare.
But in point of fact, you will only win such
a campaign if you flood all media with proof that
(14:25):
Trump is a fascist bent on revenge and a national
abortion ban and severing the safety net, and that is
called advertising. Wish it were otherwise, but it ain't. By
the way, if you were waiting for RFK Junior to
self destruct, he just gave you some of the ammunition.
This money spigot. He named as his running mate, the Shanahan.
(14:49):
She is against in vitro fertilization. She revealed this the
same day that Democrat maryland Lands, who lost Alabama State
House District ten by seven points in twenty twenty two,
she won it by twenty five point points running on
a platform to protect in vitro fertilization Tuesday. As a bonus,
(15:11):
the Shanahan part of the RFK Junior. Shanahan ticket is
not only anti in vitro, but believes IVF can easily
be replaced because two hours of exposure to morning sunshine
can make women pregnant. And now you know why crazy
Bob Junior picked her. Besides all her money, she makes
(15:32):
him look less insane. But memo to the Biden campaign,
you are going to have to spend some of that
advertising money telling the uninformed and the disconnected that RFK
is so brain damaged that he does not remember all
those times when he came out against all vaccines, and
his running mate is such a dits. She called IVF
(15:55):
a lie and said this at a conference last year.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What I would like to do and try out is
funding clinical trials that truly are for interventions that cost
no money, and one of those is sunlight. I'm not
sure that there has been a really throw like mitochondrial
respiration study on the effects of two hours of morning
(16:22):
sunlight on reproductive health. I would love to fund something
like that. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. So, you know,
interventions that really actually truly cost no money. You know
an employer benefit of you know, two hours out of
the workday to be outside under the direct sunlight. I
(16:44):
just have an intuition that could be interesting and maybe work.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. Here's the number one
story on the Countdown. A little early, I promised this
episode would probably be a little short because of the
impending medical procedure. Details to come. It's more a schedule
issue than a health one, and an unconsciousness issue, I
(17:11):
mean intentional unconsciousness, not like the normal type I have,
but it's okay because the topic of my favorite topic
me and things I promised not to tell, and the
missive in question, one of the most important letters in
my entire life was in the mail in transit to
me forty five years ago right now. Plus I just saw,
(17:37):
after all these years, a photograph of the man who
sent that letter when he was a newscaster at WCBS
radio in New York, and he sued it up in
a Yankees uniform at a radio All Star game at
the original Yankee Stadium in the summer of nineteen sixty five.
He looks serious and young. He was three months older
(17:58):
than my dad was, and it was as startling to
see him as it is still startling to read the
letter he wrote to me. This is the story, and
it is a long one of the Adler letter and
the hell through which I had to go just to
read it. The Adler letter falling into my hands on
(18:19):
the night of Sunday, April eight, nineteen seventy nine, was
like the PostScript to a breathless five hundred page novel
that turns out to be a million times more exciting,
more interesting, and more important than any of those five
hundred pages or the five hundred pages combined. We had
driven by that point around nine or ten hours. I
(18:40):
do not believe I ever actually expected to die on
the trip, but I was at least a dozen times
absolutely convinced that George and I would wind up in
the hospital. He and I were college seniors, gone home
to see the defending two time world champion New York
Yankees opened the nineteen seventy nine baseball season, and then
back on the road for the four and a half
(19:01):
hour trip from the parking garage at Yankee Stadium to
the rural wilds of Ithaca, New York. We had done
this countless times, but I did not know, as I
got out of my dad's car and later on into
George's that this trip had two previously unimaginable components. First,
(19:22):
at that hour, the Adler letter had already been sitting
in my mailbox at my apartment at two hundred and
seven Delaware Avenue, Ithaca, New York, for at least one day,
maybe two, and I did not know the other thing,
and only found it out as George told me about
it at the ballgame. His father had yelled towards him
as George backed out of the driveway that morning. George,
(19:45):
there's rain in the forecast. Drive carefully, remember I took
off your snow tires because it's spring now. The midpoint
of the trip to my school, Cornell and his Ethhaca
College more or less, was a McDonald's restaurant in Liberty,
New York. And we stopped there and got a late
(20:06):
lunch or an early dinner. And I was sitting facing
the window and George was sitting facing the counter. And
as we ate and mumbled, I said, George, you have
a really bad case of dan drift or did it
just start really snowing? George wheeled around to look out
the window. Uh oh. We wrapped up our burgers and
(20:27):
took them with us and literally ran to the car.
My father and his goddamn snow tire obsession. George shouted.
Within an hour on the outskirts of Bingham to New York,
three or four inches of snow had reduced speed to
just above single digits and visibility to next to nothing.
George was a meticulously good driver, didn't matter. We spun
out a full three sixty loop the loop. We're going north, Oops,
(20:52):
we're going west to oncoming traffic. Oops, we're going south
into the cars behind us. Oops, we're going east into
the ditch next to the highway. Oh boy, we're going
north again. I think we spun out six or seven
times on the highway alone before we got to Binghamton.
There was some sola scene, seeing other cars in both
directions doing exactly the same thing, and concluding that George's
(21:14):
father could not have had the time to remove all
their snow tires too. We were not far north of Binghamton,
still skidding, still spinning, George swearing NonStop. When he interrupted
himself long enough to ask me what time it was,
I had to hold my watch up to the car
window to get brief flashes of illumination from the highway lights.
(21:35):
A little after seven, we skid it again. George swore
loudly put the Ranger game on. I do it myself,
but we skid it again. By now I was getting
kind of used to it. I turned the radio literally
before George regained control of the steering. I found the
Rangers station, the one in New York WNAW. If you
(21:55):
had told me that night that a little over a
year later I would be broadcasting on WNEW. My first
thought would have been, so we don't get killed tonight,
because george Is father took off the snow tires. That's nice.
Oh and I worked there, and I'm not a ghost.
If you told me that night that the Adler letter
was waiting for me back in my snow covered mailbox
in Ithaca, I might have pressed George to go faster,
(22:18):
and they might never have even found our bodies. The storm,
as storms often did in those long gone days, somehow
boosted the AM radio signal from New York, and though
we were two hundred miles away from the transmitter, Marv
Albert and the WNAW Rangers broadcast was clear as a bell.
The traction even seemed to get a little better, but
(22:41):
we both knew the ordeal that lay ahead. The exit
from the highway at Whitney Point. It amazed us, as
it amazes the students there now, as it must have
amazed the students who went there a century ago. A
century and a half ago. That Cornell University, which I attended,
(23:03):
an Ithaca College, which attended, were both an hour's drive
away from the nearest highway. There was, in fact, no
access to Ithaca, New York by anything more than a
two lane road. It was legendary on the Cornell campus
that old Ezra Cornell, the barely literate railroad tie preservative
tycoon of the nineteenth century, decided to give away nearly
(23:23):
all of his fortune, which today would have been at
least a billion dollars. And he told a friend he
was going to open a university where anyone can study anything.
His friend reacted in horror, They will stampede the place.
Ezra Cornell laughed, Wait, you see where I put it.
(23:45):
Ezra Cornell's little geographical joke was still vividly alive one
hundred and ten odd years later. The easiest of the
routes to his university was the one that took you
from Ithaca to Whitney Point. Whitney Point the capital of
the metroplex there Whitney Point, Lyle and Center Lyle, also
known as the Calcutta of Broome County, where nearly three
(24:06):
thousand people live atop each other in conditions so crowded
that every person barely has his own square mile. Once
you got off at Whitney Point, you were at the
mercies of Route seventy nine, where if traffic were light
or the driver's adroit you might make it back to
it again in thirty minutes, but if you got stuck
behind somebody, it could be an hour or two. Or
(24:30):
if there was an April blizzard and George's father had
taken off your snow tires, it could take you longer
than it took Antarctic explorers to reach the South Pole,
and you'd see more snow and ice than they did.
I believe George and I skidded making the left turn
off the highway, but he managed to stay on the road.
The radio signal was not quite as fortunate. Within minutes
(24:53):
of leaving the highway, WNW began to compete for space
on George's car radio with some audible noise that the
radio could suddenly pick up from his turn signals, Make
a right, and Marv Albert was being drowned out by
a loud click e Jim Vickers crossly kick click, pop plans,
slashers click click. Within minutes after the first spin out
(25:18):
on Route seventy nine, mercifully with literally no other cars
on the road, the Woo Woo's arrived. We never figured
out what they were, but they waxed and waned so
slowly that at first I asked George why Ranger fans
at Madison Square Garden were chanting woo woo during the game.
(25:38):
George was too busy swearing to answer. The snow was
now horizontal, and as it danced towards us in George's headlights,
it was hypnotic, and the Ranger broadcast now sounded like
this Vickers crossly woo woo oOoOO, pock plan slashes, click, click, click, click,
damn it all to hell woo Woodragranson holds of the
same woo woo, son of a bench. The trip from
(26:03):
Whitney Point taken well over an hour, and we were
not halfway there yet when the inevitable happened. George kept
a steady slow pace ten or fifteen miles an hour tops.
He really was a great driver. He did not accelerate,
he did not turn, yet all of a moment, his
green nineteen seventy Dodge Dart decided to make an abrupt
(26:24):
left at about a forty five degree angle. We were
off the road in seconds and headed for an unscheduled
visit to the front porch of a farmer's house that
had to have been set back at least two hundred
feet from the road. Here. Finally, the heavy snow worked
to our advantage. It slowed us, then it stopped us
just two or three feet before we would have plowed
(26:46):
into this guy's house. However, since we were in Richford,
New York, birthplace of John Rockefeller, by the way, or
we were in Caroline or Caroline Center or Slatterville Springs,
or wherever the hell we were, the homeowner emerged bearing
not a gun nor an attitude, but genuine concern. In fact,
(27:08):
he heard the Ranger game on the radio and asked
me the score, which is when I noticed, at the
moment we had left the road, the woo woos had stopped,
and the waw signal was as good as it must
have been in Madison Square Garden in New York. The
farmer helped us push the car back onto Route seventy nine,
and as we got in he went and said, wearre
(27:29):
you snow tires. George started to swear again. I took
over and explained about George's father. Never been up here,
has he. George started the car back up and now
drove even slower. Within a minute, the woo woos were back.
Marv Albert Imsel Messina Woo woo woo where the Rangers lead.
Woo woo woo. We got there finally. George was actually
(27:56):
going to try to drive up the hill that led
to the other hill that led to the Delaware Avenue
hill where my apartment was. Calculating that I had pressed
my luck sufficiently, I told him just let me out
at East State and Mitchell and I'd make it from
there on foot. Thankfully, George's father had not removed the
sure grip souls from my winter boots. I actually went
(28:19):
to my radio station first. It was literally a two
minute walk from there to my apartment. I lingered at
WVBR for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then hiked back.
The Rangers had won their game from the station I
had called George's apartment, and he had made it back there.
And I took my first deep breath since the McDonald's
in Liberty, and I reflected that it was only six
hours until my next class, and guess what I was
(28:41):
gonna cut. I stopped off the snow on my porch
at two hundred and seven Delaware Avenue, and I opened
the door and I dumped my bag inside, and then
I reached into the mailbox, and I saw it immediately
the return address Adler WCBS, CBS Radio, the vision of
(29:05):
CBS Inc. Fifty one West fifty two Street, New York,
New York, one zero zero one nine two one two
nine seven five four three two one. Lou Adler was
radio news in New York City in April nineteen seventy nine.
And this was April nineteen seventy nine. I could barely
(29:29):
breathe the Adler letter. What was in the Adler letter?
Which explains why five decades later, I know it by
heart and can tell you exactly where it is at
the moment. That's next. This is countdown, resuming the number
(29:52):
one story on the Countdown and the several lifetimes contained.
On Sunday, April eighth, nineteen seventy nine, I survived nine
or ten or eight hundred hour drive. I've been a
blizzard right after my friend's dad had healthfully removed the
snow tires from my friend's car. I had lived to
resume my desperate bid to graduate college in two months
(30:15):
and get a job somewhere in radio in three months,
And against all odds, amid all the snow and mess,
there was a letter waiting for me at my apartment
in silent snow inundated Ithaca, New York. A letter from
Lou Adler, the news director of the leading all news
station in the United States of America. Lou Adler had
(30:37):
begun on WCBS the year I was born. In nineteen
sixty seven, the station went all news, and it immediately
became the best all news station in the country. Lou
Adler co anchored the mornings, and eight years earlier he
had become the station's news director. He was the best.
His co anchor, Jim Donnelly, was the best. His sportscaster
at Engles was the best. His reporters were the best.
(30:59):
His weatherman was the best. His traffic guys were the best.
His jingles were the best. I listened daily in high school,
and when I was home from college. I did not
take literal notes, only mental ones. My college graduation, if
I made it, was seven weeks away. I had never
worked on television in any form, but I had been
on radio two or three thousand times by then, and
(31:22):
I thought I was pretty good at it. In the
preceding months, I had flooded every radio station in every
major market in the Northeast with a demo tape and
a resume, I figured I might as well start in
my home of New York and not eliminate a potential job,
no matter how long a long shot it might have been.
If I wasn't good enough to work there, I concluded
(31:43):
I should let the people who ran New York's radio
stations decide that, since that's what they were paid to do.
To this point, they had decided that. By not responding,
I got a few nibbles from some of the smaller stations,
But as April eighth turned to April ninth, I had
no job prospects. Other friends getting offers in Waterbury, Connecticut,
(32:07):
and Laconia, New Hampshire, thought of which and nothing against
either of those cities filled me with terror. And now,
after this ordeal by snow and without snow tires, after
the wnw wooo's and George's father's near fatal decision to
remove those winter tires, here in my hand was a
letter from the man who was, to my mind, the
(32:28):
best radio newscaster I had ever heard. Obviously it would
be a rejection, But even in that moment, even at
my age twenty years two months and change, I was
awe struck not only that Lou Adler had replied, but
that he alone, of all I had written to, he
had been the one who replied. I believe I did
(32:50):
not remove my parka before opening the envelope. I did
put on one lamp in my apartment, and I read
WCBS CBS Radio, a division of CBS Inc. Fifty one
Less fifty two Street, New York, New York, one zero
zero one Night, two nine seventy five four three two
one April third, nineteen seventy nine, mister Keith Olderman, two
(33:10):
hundred and seven Delaware Avenue, Atica, New York, one four
eighty five. Oh, dear mister Olderman. This will reply to
your letter of March twenty seventh, with which you included
a tape of your sports work on WVBRFM. Sometimes it's
hard to know what a man can do by listening
to a brief tape. I stopped, wait a man, wait
(33:35):
which which? Oh me, I'm just a kid. Sometimes it's
hard to know what a man can do by listening
to a brief tape. But I must tell you I
was excited by what I heard of yours. I think
you have exceptional talent. And poise considering your age and experience,
you read well, and you write well, and you know
(33:55):
how to use tape. If the short tape is truly
representative of what you can do, and if your knowledge
of sports is broad, and if you can perform under
pressure well, then I feel you have an excellent future
in this industry. By this point, my heart was beating
so furiously I could hear it. I was this close
(34:16):
to hearing it make the woo woo sound. I think
it might be a good idea for us to meet.
Let me know when you can make it to New York.
I have nothing here for you, and I know of
nothing solid. But if I feel as strongly about your
potential after we meet as I do now, a meeting
certainly could do you no harm. Sincerely, Lewis c Adler,
(34:38):
Director News, Operations and Programs LCA slash Peep, George, I
screamed into the phone. Can we drive back to the
city right now? He swore. I read George the letter.
He paused, No, we shouldn't go tonight, and you're not
going to see him tomorrow. Wait till you get your appointment.
(35:00):
But Jesus, this is like the manager of the Yankees,
asking you to stop by the stadium and bring your
glove and bat, just in case I think I got
to sleep at sunrise. I had read the Adler letter
twenty or thirty times, and not until the fifteenth or
so did I stop expecting it to have turned back
into some courteous form letter rejection badly xeroxton, slightly offsetter.
(35:23):
Slowly it dawned on me that my own assessment of
my radio skills were not predicated on ego or even
the context of what else I could hear in Ithaca,
which was then the three hundred and fifty first largest
radio market in the country. Good but still three hundred
and fifty first. I cannot now describe the sense of validation,
(35:45):
except to say that I half seriously considered not taking
Lou Adler up on his offer to meet him at
CBS World Headquarters, black Rock itself, where Bill Paley would
be working upstairs, because short of offering me a job,
there really was no chance mister Adler could do or
say anything more that could make me feel better or
(36:07):
more confident that my dream of becoming a sportscaster would
not lead me to starvation or to Laconia, New Hampshire.
In fact, in person, Lou Adler found more things to say.
If I had an opening for a sportscaster right now,
I would seriously consider you for it. I would hesitate
because of your age and your lack of practical experience,
(36:29):
and then I'd probably do it anyway. He was as
warm and supportive and informal as his letter had been,
structured and serious and tempered. Let me take you on
a tour. We saw the live studios, the production studios,
the writer's area. I wasn't just speechless again, I was breathless.
And you should probably recognize this man by voice, if
(36:50):
not by sight. Keith Olderman. Meet our sports director, Ed Engles. Ed,
this is Keith. This is the fellow with the tape.
Ed Engles took a moment that his eyes widened. Hip. Jesus, Lou,
don't tell me you've hired him? Did you fire me?
(37:10):
I must admit I thought for a second it might
have happened. I did not shrink entirely from that fantasy.
Lou Adler laughed, No, Eddie. Then he paused, it was irresistible.
Not yet. We went back to Lou Adwear's office. Have
you got any job? Prospects. I explained that a month earlier,
thanks to a chain of recommendations that stretched from my
(37:31):
internship at Channel five Television the year before through a
young ABC Sports executive named Bob Eiger. I think it
was to a friend of a friend of a friend
of a friend. I had met everybody at the radio
network of United Press International, and I was supposed to
go back and see them about working their freelance as
summer vacation relief for the year ahead in sports and
(37:52):
in news. Oh, that would be ideal for you, Lou
Adwer said. It's a tough place to work. They don't
pay well at UPI, but it's here in the city,
and every other radio station in this country will hear
you on the fee. That's where we hired ed from
ed Ingles. So if we have an opening, he smiled broadly,
I can poach you and get you here in less
than two weeks, can I. Mister Adler then suggested that
(38:18):
CBS station in Atlanta would be needing a sportscaster in
a few months. I'll stay on top of that. They
already have a copy of your tape. I hope you
don't mind. I made several copies of your tape. If
UPI does not work out, I am confident you will
be offered a job in Atlanta and maybe quite a
few other jobs. I hope I've been of some help.
Stay in touch. It's one of the privileges of this
job to be able to help. But frankly, you're not
(38:40):
going to need that much help. I may have taken
the train back to my folks house, or I may
have just walked the twenty miles or floated. The UPI
job worked out full time two months later, at the
first game I covered for money, I walked into the
press box at Shay Stadium and there was ed ingles
(39:03):
Thank god you went to you. The way Adler went
on about you, I seriously wondered if he was planning
to bring you in and kick me out. The Atlanta
offer Lou Adler arranged came, I turned it down. About
a year later, I got a call from Adler's assistant
saying they were going to need a new afternoon sportscaster
at WCBS and would I send a new tape. But
(39:23):
by that fall, when the job opened, Lou Adler was
leaving WCBS to become news director and vice president of
another New York radio station, wor his successor would choose
somebody else for the job. Just as I heard from
the people who ran the radio network that the WR
folks had started the year before, it was not coincidental
Lou Adler had sent these people starting this new network.
(39:46):
My tape there is inevitably from the distant future a punchline.
In two thousand and six or two thousand and seven,
when Countdown had become the highest rated cable news program
that wasn't on Fox, an email appeared in my inbox.
I could not leave the name of the sender, Lou Adler.
(40:09):
He began just as formally as he had in nineteen
seventy nine. He actually felt it was necessary to remind
me about his letter. He said he watched every night,
and when he found other viewers of the program, he
told them the story. Proudly, he said. He asked if
I remembered. I wrote back, immediately, remembered. Remembered. I told
(40:29):
him I still had his letter, and I still had
the sense of confidence it had given me that it
was central to my decision to more or less give
up my sports career. At the age of thirty eight,
and try news, and I told him the whole driving
back to Ithaca and the snow tire story, just for fun.
Lou wrote back again within minutes. He had just retired
after running the mass communications program at Quinnipiac College, and
(40:52):
he said he had a strong sense of his career
having been the proverbial punch into a pail of water.
Now it was my turn to reassure him that the
people like me who he had supported and taught and
broadcast too, had long since begun to support and teach
the next generation, and that generation was already supporting the
(41:12):
one after that. And there would be people in this
business beginning their careers after both of us were dead
who would owe a debt of gratitude, whether or not
they knew it to Lou Adler, as I always will.
Lou Adler died five years ago at the age of
eighty eight. There are letters and photos in the hallway
(41:35):
that leads in from the front door of my home.
They are from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden,
and Lou Adler. I've done all the damage I can
(42:03):
do here. Thank you for listening. Count On Musical Directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneale arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Produced
by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports
(42:24):
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and
fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Faust. The best baseball
stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend John Deem.
Everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
this the two hundred and seventeenth day until the twenty
(42:47):
twenty four presidential election, but one one hundred and eighty
fourth day since dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
Fourteenth Amendment, use the not regularly given elector objection option,
use the Insurrection Act, used the justice system, use the
mental health system to stop him from doing it again
(43:09):
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow again,
it might not happen. It might be abridged, depending on
this routine medical procedure. If the hospital issues a bulletin,
don't look for a new addition tomorrow. Otherwise, bulletins is
the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning,
(43:33):
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(43:53):
Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Biden
fifty two Trump forty eight likely voters. New Marquette Law
(00:29):
School poll impressive, not decisive, but more impressive with this
context noted Marquette Law School poll ending February fifteenth, Likely
voters Trump fifty two, Biden forty eight. So that's Biden
minus four to Biden plus four in forty three days,
(00:50):
an eight points wing in forty three days. Marquette defines
its likely voters as registered and claiming they are certain
to vote. Broaden it out to all registered and it's
still a Biden's swing. Okay, I'll say it. It's joementum.
Among all registered voters in the Marquette poll, it is
(01:12):
now fifty to fifty. In the middle of February, it
was Trump fifty one to forty nine. It was on
January fifteenth of this year when internal Biden polling data leaked,
or at least the conclusions thereof leaked, And as I
will go into depth, in a moment, they insisted, at
what was for them the nadir of this campaign, that
(01:35):
there would be an osm an oh spit moment. Only
they didn't say spit, not at which Biden or Biden
supporters spat, but a point at which the undecideds, who
had convinced themselves that somehow Trump would not be the
Republican nominee and thus that they would have a different
(01:57):
alternative coming from the GOP, that they would realize, oh, spit,
Trump has gotten the Republican nomination. And it was the
firm belief inside Biden headquarters that when that moment occurred,
when he clinched the nomination, the Republican nomination, all the
(02:17):
undecideds would break for Biden, which seems to be the
case as a fascinating aside, a moronically fascinating aside. In
the Marquette poll, Trump is still thrashing the president by
sixty four to thirty six. In one demographic sixty four
(02:40):
to thirty six. Trump among those not registered to vote, Hey, dementia, Jay,
everybody who isn't voting is voting for you. I know
they could still register them, but that would involve spending
(03:01):
less money on lawyers. Apropos of the good Biden polling
news This from the Washington Post. Isaac Arnsdorf in a
new book, The other key besides the O spit moment.
The messaging routing back to November two, twenty twenty one,
when the Democrats ran the rather hapless and opportunistic and
(03:23):
generic Terry mccaulliffe for governor of Virginia because he'd been
such a good behind the scenes operator, and they were
convinced all they had to do to win was to
pin Trump to their bland Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin. And
it never happened, and mccauliffe lost a nominally Democratic state
in the immediate aftermath of the Trump Insurrection, and he
(03:46):
lost it by two hundred and sixty thousand votes to
a guy in a parka vest. In his new book,
mister Arnsdorf says Anita Dunn of a White House promptly
convened the key guys from four different campaign consulting and
media groups to figure out why that happened. And the
(04:07):
answer was the messaging, Like the Democrats don't have any messaging,
so they put it out for research. They researched it,
and the polling came back thusly, eighty percent of American
voters of all kinds knew what MAGA was, and half
of that eighty percent had an unfavorable opinion of what
(04:31):
MAGA was. Voters used terms like dangerous, divisive, extreme, power hungry, maga. Now,
how could you paint Republicans all Republicans as mega hmm
maga and Republicans maga and Republicans knowing upper hierarchy Dems,
(04:55):
they probably workshopped Republican megas for eight weeks, then Hoopsucker,
then the Hudswinger before somebody said fellas fellas, fellas, I
got something Maga Republicans. That's when and why Biden began
(05:18):
calling them that Maga Republicans. And when Even Politico, which
reported this, says, and the rest was history. A corner
has been turned. By the way, go and do this,
google Maga Republicans in quotes Maga Republicans. There are one million,
(05:40):
three hundred and forty thousand results, the other evidence that
the rest might indeed be history. Gamblers, now they are
just as flawed in terms of predictive quality as pollsters
and analysts are. The gamblers were still heavily betting on
Hillary Clinton the morning of the twenty sixteen elections. Still
(06:02):
this is worth a note. On March third, betting at
a thing called polymarket on who will win the twenty
twenty four US presidential election was Trump fifty four percent,
Biden thirty two percent. Betting at polymarket this Wednesday was
Trump forty seven percent, Biden forty three percent. Betting at
(06:28):
polymarket last night was Trump forty six percent, Biden forty
four percent. Again, this is the result of how people gamble. Still,
it is a good measure of what people think is
happening or what they believe is beginning to happen. And
(06:49):
it is usually dispassionate. It is concerned only with money.
And in thirty two days, Trump lost eight points and
Biden gained twelve points. In this polymarket, a twenty point
swing in thirty two days is a twenty point swing,
and I don't care if it's in the polymarket or
(07:10):
in the mini market. So that's what I was thinking
about while I was unconscious in the hospital yesterday, the
minor medical procedure, my colonoscopy. I was there when he
made his hemorrhoid joke at the nineteen eighty World Series.
So I think I'm entitled to paraphrase George Bread of
(07:32):
the Kansas City Royals. Well, there it is your proof
that I am a perfect asshole. All good, except for,
you know, the being unconscious part. So as I think
I may have warned you three times this week, today's
podcast is truncated. In fact, what you have heard is
(07:55):
all the new there is today. But I wanted to
do a redux of that first bit from two and
a half months ago. And people still remembered who Dean
Phillips used to be, and the White House was answering
not with panic but with the O Spit moment. And
I also wanted to recap last week's polling news that
very much lines up with this stuff from the Marquette Pole.
(08:16):
And if you don't want to hear it again, I
get it. I think it's insightful, not what I said,
but what they said. Plus I'm really tired. So here's
all the new ahead in me because I had other
things in me that we had to get out too.
And I'll see you with an all new on Monday
night Tuesday morning. Till then, goodnight and good luck. Play
(08:41):
the tape. Now, there is the possibility that if and
when Trump nails down the Republican nomination, the Biden Trump
race will suddenly tilt strongly towards Joe Biden. CNN had
a story, the importance of which flew right over the
head of every TV political pundit and over the head
(09:03):
of CNN's owner. Orders quoting sources with access to Biden
internal polling and research that may explain what a lot
of us have seen as well. Just visualize that dog
in the blazing room. This is fine meme again. Biden
campaign data indicates that among undecided voters, three out of
(09:27):
four of them do not seem to believe that the
Republican nominee will be Trump. CNN quotes one senior Biden
official as saying, you can't conceive of how tuned out
these folks are. Try me anyway. Another quote, apparently from
(09:48):
a different Biden campaign official, the realization will soon come
quote oh shit, it is an election between that guy
and that guy unquote. Three out of four undecideds are
politically illiterate and or in Trump denial impossible, impossible. The
(10:10):
Morris Berman book The Twilight of American Culture includes this.
I'm quoting a survey taken in October nineteen ninety six
revealed that one in ten voters did not know who
the Republican or Democratic nominees for president were. That was
nineteen ninety six, less than one month before the nineteen
ninety six election, by which point the Democratic nominee, if
(10:32):
you've forgotten, had been president for three years and nine months. Now.
This is a guess. I'm going way out on a
limb here, no empirical evidence, but even with the invention
of social media, I'm gonna guess that voter imbecility has
not improved since nineteen ninety six. So when a Yugov
(10:54):
poll from a week ago today had it Biden forty three,
Trump forty three, that's fourteen percent undecided or other, and
maybe one or two out of every ten of them
couldn't really place the names Biden and Trump. Plus per
the Biden research, seven or eight out of every ten
(11:16):
of them still really didn't believe Trump will be on
the ballot. Trump and Trump leaning undecided fifty, Biden and
(11:37):
Biden leaning undecideds fifty. And the Harvard Harris Pole, the
Harvard Harris Poll, about which a Harvard School newspaper columnist
wrote on Tuesday, Harvard should break up with the Harris
Pole because the university is quote lending its name to
a methodologically flawed poll that often promotes a right wing
(11:57):
political agenda. So forget the Olberman caveat numbers of undecideds
and margins of era. The Harris Poles leans right. Yet
even it has this race a tie, and moreover, with
the spoiler candidates and with the undecideds undecided, it has
it forty thirty seven Trump and the eight percent undecided
(12:19):
leaning sixty one percent to Biden, including fifty eight percent
of independent undecideds and forty one percent of Republican undecided.
And that is, after all, exactly what the Biden internal
metrics told the president's campaign months ago, and that is
exactly why they did not panic when everybody else panicked,
(12:40):
because they stuck to the mantra that the minute Trump
actually got the Republican nomination, the undecideds and the independents
would have their O spit moment and break for Biden.
Even in the right leaning Harvard Harris Pole or as
it is colloquially referred to the Mark Penn Personal Vendetta Pole,
(13:00):
and in the Bloomberg Morning Consult poll of swing states,
which it was the talk of politics when Trump was
ahead everywhere, but it is not the talk of politics
at this moment because in the new one Biden went
up in six out of the seven states, leading in Wisconsin,
tied in Michigan, tied in Pennsylvania, minus two in Nevada.
(13:21):
So if you looked a skance at last night's fundraiser
down the block from me at Radio City, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost and the twenty five
million dollar money bomb expected from the simultaneous appearance of
Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, don't look a skance.
How much would you pay to not live under a
(13:42):
Trump dictatorship. More to the point, if the Harvard Harris
poll is sketchy at best, then its rationales are sketchy
at best. But Harvard Harris said it saw no bump
after Biden stated the union, but it did see a
bump after Biden's first wall to wall ad blitz. And yes,
(14:02):
it's the economy, or more correctly, the perception of the economy.
And yes, you should be able to win a campaign
against a lunatic whose brain is leaking out of his
ears and is running on a platform of fascism, despotism, revenge,
a national abortion ban, and cutting social security and medicare.
But in point of fact, you will only win such
a campaign if you flood all media with proof that
(14:25):
Trump is a fascist bent on revenge and a national
abortion ban and severing the safety net, and that is
called advertising. Wish it were otherwise, but it ain't. By
the way, if you were waiting for RFK Junior to
self destruct, he just gave you some of the ammunition.
This money spigot. He named as his running mate, the Shanahan.
(14:49):
She is against in vitro fertilization. She revealed this the
same day that Democrat maryland Lands, who lost Alabama State
House District ten by seven points in twenty twenty two,
she won it by twenty five point points running on
a platform to protect in vitro fertilization Tuesday. As a bonus,
(15:11):
the Shanahan part of the RFK Junior. Shanahan ticket is
not only anti in vitro, but believes IVF can easily
be replaced because two hours of exposure to morning sunshine
can make women pregnant. And now you know why crazy
Bob Junior picked her. Besides all her money, she makes
(15:32):
him look less insane. But memo to the Biden campaign,
you are going to have to spend some of that
advertising money telling the uninformed and the disconnected that RFK
is so brain damaged that he does not remember all
those times when he came out against all vaccines, and
his running mate is such a dits. She called IVF
(15:55):
a lie and said this at a conference last year.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What I would like to do and try out is
funding clinical trials that truly are for interventions that cost
no money, and one of those is sunlight. I'm not
sure that there has been a really throw like mitochondrial
respiration study on the effects of two hours of morning
(16:22):
sunlight on reproductive health. I would love to fund something
like that. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. So, you know,
interventions that really actually truly cost no money. You know
an employer benefit of you know, two hours out of
the workday to be outside under the direct sunlight. I
(16:44):
just have an intuition that could be interesting and maybe work.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. Here's the number one
story on the Countdown. A little early, I promised this
episode would probably be a little short because of the
impending medical procedure. Details to come. It's more a schedule
issue than a health one, and an unconsciousness issue, I
(17:11):
mean intentional unconsciousness, not like the normal type I have,
but it's okay because the topic of my favorite topic
me and things I promised not to tell, and the
missive in question, one of the most important letters in
my entire life was in the mail in transit to
me forty five years ago right now. Plus I just saw,
(17:37):
after all these years, a photograph of the man who
sent that letter when he was a newscaster at WCBS
radio in New York, and he sued it up in
a Yankees uniform at a radio All Star game at
the original Yankee Stadium in the summer of nineteen sixty five.
He looks serious and young. He was three months older
(17:58):
than my dad was, and it was as startling to
see him as it is still startling to read the
letter he wrote to me. This is the story, and
it is a long one of the Adler letter and
the hell through which I had to go just to
read it. The Adler letter falling into my hands on
(18:19):
the night of Sunday, April eight, nineteen seventy nine, was
like the PostScript to a breathless five hundred page novel
that turns out to be a million times more exciting,
more interesting, and more important than any of those five
hundred pages or the five hundred pages combined. We had
driven by that point around nine or ten hours. I
(18:40):
do not believe I ever actually expected to die on
the trip, but I was at least a dozen times
absolutely convinced that George and I would wind up in
the hospital. He and I were college seniors, gone home
to see the defending two time world champion New York
Yankees opened the nineteen seventy nine baseball season, and then
back on the road for the four and a half
(19:01):
hour trip from the parking garage at Yankee Stadium to
the rural wilds of Ithaca, New York. We had done
this countless times, but I did not know, as I
got out of my dad's car and later on into
George's that this trip had two previously unimaginable components. First,
(19:22):
at that hour, the Adler letter had already been sitting
in my mailbox at my apartment at two hundred and
seven Delaware Avenue, Ithaca, New York, for at least one day,
maybe two, and I did not know the other thing,
and only found it out as George told me about
it at the ballgame. His father had yelled towards him
as George backed out of the driveway that morning. George,
(19:45):
there's rain in the forecast. Drive carefully, remember I took
off your snow tires because it's spring now. The midpoint
of the trip to my school, Cornell and his Ethhaca
College more or less, was a McDonald's restaurant in Liberty,
New York. And we stopped there and got a late
(20:06):
lunch or an early dinner. And I was sitting facing
the window and George was sitting facing the counter. And
as we ate and mumbled, I said, George, you have
a really bad case of dan drift or did it
just start really snowing? George wheeled around to look out
the window. Uh oh. We wrapped up our burgers and
(20:27):
took them with us and literally ran to the car.
My father and his goddamn snow tire obsession. George shouted.
Within an hour on the outskirts of Bingham to New York,
three or four inches of snow had reduced speed to
just above single digits and visibility to next to nothing.
George was a meticulously good driver, didn't matter. We spun
out a full three sixty loop the loop. We're going north, Oops,
(20:52):
we're going west to oncoming traffic. Oops, we're going south
into the cars behind us. Oops, we're going east into
the ditch next to the highway. Oh boy, we're going
north again. I think we spun out six or seven
times on the highway alone before we got to Binghamton.
There was some sola scene, seeing other cars in both
directions doing exactly the same thing, and concluding that George's
(21:14):
father could not have had the time to remove all
their snow tires too. We were not far north of Binghamton,
still skidding, still spinning, George swearing NonStop. When he interrupted
himself long enough to ask me what time it was,
I had to hold my watch up to the car
window to get brief flashes of illumination from the highway lights.
(21:35):
A little after seven, we skid it again. George swore
loudly put the Ranger game on. I do it myself,
but we skid it again. By now I was getting
kind of used to it. I turned the radio literally
before George regained control of the steering. I found the
Rangers station, the one in New York WNAW. If you
(21:55):
had told me that night that a little over a
year later I would be broadcasting on WNEW. My first
thought would have been, so we don't get killed tonight,
because george Is father took off the snow tires. That's nice.
Oh and I worked there, and I'm not a ghost.
If you told me that night that the Adler letter
was waiting for me back in my snow covered mailbox
in Ithaca, I might have pressed George to go faster,
(22:18):
and they might never have even found our bodies. The storm,
as storms often did in those long gone days, somehow
boosted the AM radio signal from New York, and though
we were two hundred miles away from the transmitter, Marv
Albert and the WNAW Rangers broadcast was clear as a bell.
The traction even seemed to get a little better, but
(22:41):
we both knew the ordeal that lay ahead. The exit
from the highway at Whitney Point. It amazed us, as
it amazes the students there now, as it must have
amazed the students who went there a century ago. A
century and a half ago. That Cornell University, which I attended,
(23:03):
an Ithaca College, which attended, were both an hour's drive
away from the nearest highway. There was, in fact, no
access to Ithaca, New York by anything more than a
two lane road. It was legendary on the Cornell campus
that old Ezra Cornell, the barely literate railroad tie preservative
tycoon of the nineteenth century, decided to give away nearly
(23:23):
all of his fortune, which today would have been at
least a billion dollars. And he told a friend he
was going to open a university where anyone can study anything.
His friend reacted in horror, They will stampede the place.
Ezra Cornell laughed, Wait, you see where I put it.
(23:45):
Ezra Cornell's little geographical joke was still vividly alive one
hundred and ten odd years later. The easiest of the
routes to his university was the one that took you
from Ithaca to Whitney Point. Whitney Point the capital of
the metroplex there Whitney Point, Lyle and Center Lyle, also
known as the Calcutta of Broome County, where nearly three
(24:06):
thousand people live atop each other in conditions so crowded
that every person barely has his own square mile. Once
you got off at Whitney Point, you were at the
mercies of Route seventy nine, where if traffic were light
or the driver's adroit you might make it back to
it again in thirty minutes, but if you got stuck
behind somebody, it could be an hour or two. Or
(24:30):
if there was an April blizzard and George's father had
taken off your snow tires, it could take you longer
than it took Antarctic explorers to reach the South Pole,
and you'd see more snow and ice than they did.
I believe George and I skidded making the left turn
off the highway, but he managed to stay on the road.
The radio signal was not quite as fortunate. Within minutes
(24:53):
of leaving the highway, WNW began to compete for space
on George's car radio with some audible noise that the
radio could suddenly pick up from his turn signals, Make
a right, and Marv Albert was being drowned out by
a loud click e Jim Vickers crossly kick click, pop plans,
slashers click click. Within minutes after the first spin out
(25:18):
on Route seventy nine, mercifully with literally no other cars
on the road, the Woo Woo's arrived. We never figured
out what they were, but they waxed and waned so
slowly that at first I asked George why Ranger fans
at Madison Square Garden were chanting woo woo during the game.
(25:38):
George was too busy swearing to answer. The snow was
now horizontal, and as it danced towards us in George's headlights,
it was hypnotic, and the Ranger broadcast now sounded like
this Vickers crossly woo woo oOoOO, pock plan slashes, click, click, click, click,
damn it all to hell woo Woodragranson holds of the
same woo woo, son of a bench. The trip from
(26:03):
Whitney Point taken well over an hour, and we were
not halfway there yet when the inevitable happened. George kept
a steady slow pace ten or fifteen miles an hour tops.
He really was a great driver. He did not accelerate,
he did not turn, yet all of a moment, his
green nineteen seventy Dodge Dart decided to make an abrupt
(26:24):
left at about a forty five degree angle. We were
off the road in seconds and headed for an unscheduled
visit to the front porch of a farmer's house that
had to have been set back at least two hundred
feet from the road. Here. Finally, the heavy snow worked
to our advantage. It slowed us, then it stopped us
just two or three feet before we would have plowed
(26:46):
into this guy's house. However, since we were in Richford,
New York, birthplace of John Rockefeller, by the way, or
we were in Caroline or Caroline Center or Slatterville Springs,
or wherever the hell we were, the homeowner emerged bearing
not a gun nor an attitude, but genuine concern. In fact,
(27:08):
he heard the Ranger game on the radio and asked
me the score, which is when I noticed, at the
moment we had left the road, the woo woos had stopped,
and the waw signal was as good as it must
have been in Madison Square Garden in New York. The
farmer helped us push the car back onto Route seventy nine,
and as we got in he went and said, wearre
(27:29):
you snow tires. George started to swear again. I took
over and explained about George's father. Never been up here,
has he. George started the car back up and now
drove even slower. Within a minute, the woo woos were back.
Marv Albert Imsel Messina Woo woo woo where the Rangers lead.
Woo woo woo. We got there finally. George was actually
(27:56):
going to try to drive up the hill that led
to the other hill that led to the Delaware Avenue
hill where my apartment was. Calculating that I had pressed
my luck sufficiently, I told him just let me out
at East State and Mitchell and I'd make it from
there on foot. Thankfully, George's father had not removed the
sure grip souls from my winter boots. I actually went
(28:19):
to my radio station first. It was literally a two
minute walk from there to my apartment. I lingered at
WVBR for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then hiked back.
The Rangers had won their game from the station I
had called George's apartment, and he had made it back there.
And I took my first deep breath since the McDonald's
in Liberty, and I reflected that it was only six
hours until my next class, and guess what I was
(28:41):
gonna cut. I stopped off the snow on my porch
at two hundred and seven Delaware Avenue, and I opened
the door and I dumped my bag inside, and then
I reached into the mailbox, and I saw it immediately
the return address Adler WCBS, CBS Radio, the vision of
(29:05):
CBS Inc. Fifty one West fifty two Street, New York,
New York, one zero zero one nine two one two
nine seven five four three two one. Lou Adler was
radio news in New York City in April nineteen seventy nine.
And this was April nineteen seventy nine. I could barely
(29:29):
breathe the Adler letter. What was in the Adler letter?
Which explains why five decades later, I know it by
heart and can tell you exactly where it is at
the moment. That's next. This is countdown, resuming the number
(29:52):
one story on the Countdown and the several lifetimes contained.
On Sunday, April eighth, nineteen seventy nine, I survived nine
or ten or eight hundred hour drive. I've been a
blizzard right after my friend's dad had healthfully removed the
snow tires from my friend's car. I had lived to
resume my desperate bid to graduate college in two months
(30:15):
and get a job somewhere in radio in three months,
And against all odds, amid all the snow and mess,
there was a letter waiting for me at my apartment
in silent snow inundated Ithaca, New York. A letter from
Lou Adler, the news director of the leading all news
station in the United States of America. Lou Adler had
(30:37):
begun on WCBS the year I was born. In nineteen
sixty seven, the station went all news, and it immediately
became the best all news station in the country. Lou
Adler co anchored the mornings, and eight years earlier he
had become the station's news director. He was the best.
His co anchor, Jim Donnelly, was the best. His sportscaster
at Engles was the best. His reporters were the best.
(30:59):
His weatherman was the best. His traffic guys were the best.
His jingles were the best. I listened daily in high school,
and when I was home from college. I did not
take literal notes, only mental ones. My college graduation, if
I made it, was seven weeks away. I had never
worked on television in any form, but I had been
on radio two or three thousand times by then, and
(31:22):
I thought I was pretty good at it. In the
preceding months, I had flooded every radio station in every
major market in the Northeast with a demo tape and
a resume, I figured I might as well start in
my home of New York and not eliminate a potential job,
no matter how long a long shot it might have been.
If I wasn't good enough to work there, I concluded
(31:43):
I should let the people who ran New York's radio
stations decide that, since that's what they were paid to do.
To this point, they had decided that. By not responding,
I got a few nibbles from some of the smaller stations,
But as April eighth turned to April ninth, I had
no job prospects. Other friends getting offers in Waterbury, Connecticut,
(32:07):
and Laconia, New Hampshire, thought of which and nothing against
either of those cities filled me with terror. And now,
after this ordeal by snow and without snow tires, after
the wnw wooo's and George's father's near fatal decision to
remove those winter tires, here in my hand was a
letter from the man who was, to my mind, the
(32:28):
best radio newscaster I had ever heard. Obviously it would
be a rejection, But even in that moment, even at
my age twenty years two months and change, I was
awe struck not only that Lou Adler had replied, but
that he alone, of all I had written to, he
had been the one who replied. I believe I did
(32:50):
not remove my parka before opening the envelope. I did
put on one lamp in my apartment, and I read
WCBS CBS Radio, a division of CBS Inc. Fifty one
Less fifty two Street, New York, New York, one zero
zero one Night, two nine seventy five four three two
one April third, nineteen seventy nine, mister Keith Olderman, two
(33:10):
hundred and seven Delaware Avenue, Atica, New York, one four
eighty five. Oh, dear mister Olderman. This will reply to
your letter of March twenty seventh, with which you included
a tape of your sports work on WVBRFM. Sometimes it's
hard to know what a man can do by listening
to a brief tape. I stopped, wait a man, wait
(33:35):
which which? Oh me, I'm just a kid. Sometimes it's
hard to know what a man can do by listening
to a brief tape. But I must tell you I
was excited by what I heard of yours. I think
you have exceptional talent. And poise considering your age and experience,
you read well, and you write well, and you know
(33:55):
how to use tape. If the short tape is truly
representative of what you can do, and if your knowledge
of sports is broad, and if you can perform under
pressure well, then I feel you have an excellent future
in this industry. By this point, my heart was beating
so furiously I could hear it. I was this close
(34:16):
to hearing it make the woo woo sound. I think
it might be a good idea for us to meet.
Let me know when you can make it to New York.
I have nothing here for you, and I know of
nothing solid. But if I feel as strongly about your
potential after we meet as I do now, a meeting
certainly could do you no harm. Sincerely, Lewis c Adler,
(34:38):
Director News, Operations and Programs LCA slash Peep, George, I
screamed into the phone. Can we drive back to the
city right now? He swore. I read George the letter.
He paused, No, we shouldn't go tonight, and you're not
going to see him tomorrow. Wait till you get your appointment.
(35:00):
But Jesus, this is like the manager of the Yankees,
asking you to stop by the stadium and bring your
glove and bat, just in case I think I got
to sleep at sunrise. I had read the Adler letter
twenty or thirty times, and not until the fifteenth or
so did I stop expecting it to have turned back
into some courteous form letter rejection badly xeroxton, slightly offsetter.
(35:23):
Slowly it dawned on me that my own assessment of
my radio skills were not predicated on ego or even
the context of what else I could hear in Ithaca,
which was then the three hundred and fifty first largest
radio market in the country. Good but still three hundred
and fifty first. I cannot now describe the sense of validation,
(35:45):
except to say that I half seriously considered not taking
Lou Adler up on his offer to meet him at
CBS World Headquarters, black Rock itself, where Bill Paley would
be working upstairs, because short of offering me a job,
there really was no chance mister Adler could do or
say anything more that could make me feel better or
(36:07):
more confident that my dream of becoming a sportscaster would
not lead me to starvation or to Laconia, New Hampshire.
In fact, in person, Lou Adler found more things to say.
If I had an opening for a sportscaster right now,
I would seriously consider you for it. I would hesitate
because of your age and your lack of practical experience,
(36:29):
and then I'd probably do it anyway. He was as
warm and supportive and informal as his letter had been,
structured and serious and tempered. Let me take you on
a tour. We saw the live studios, the production studios,
the writer's area. I wasn't just speechless again, I was breathless.
And you should probably recognize this man by voice, if
(36:50):
not by sight. Keith Olderman. Meet our sports director, Ed Engles. Ed,
this is Keith. This is the fellow with the tape.
Ed Engles took a moment that his eyes widened. Hip. Jesus, Lou,
don't tell me you've hired him? Did you fire me?
(37:10):
I must admit I thought for a second it might
have happened. I did not shrink entirely from that fantasy.
Lou Adler laughed, No, Eddie. Then he paused, it was irresistible.
Not yet. We went back to Lou Adwear's office. Have
you got any job? Prospects. I explained that a month earlier,
thanks to a chain of recommendations that stretched from my
(37:31):
internship at Channel five Television the year before through a
young ABC Sports executive named Bob Eiger. I think it
was to a friend of a friend of a friend
of a friend. I had met everybody at the radio
network of United Press International, and I was supposed to
go back and see them about working their freelance as
summer vacation relief for the year ahead in sports and
(37:52):
in news. Oh, that would be ideal for you, Lou
Adwer said. It's a tough place to work. They don't
pay well at UPI, but it's here in the city,
and every other radio station in this country will hear
you on the fee. That's where we hired ed from
ed Ingles. So if we have an opening, he smiled broadly,
I can poach you and get you here in less
than two weeks, can I. Mister Adler then suggested that
(38:18):
CBS station in Atlanta would be needing a sportscaster in
a few months. I'll stay on top of that. They
already have a copy of your tape. I hope you
don't mind. I made several copies of your tape. If
UPI does not work out, I am confident you will
be offered a job in Atlanta and maybe quite a
few other jobs. I hope I've been of some help.
Stay in touch. It's one of the privileges of this
job to be able to help. But frankly, you're not
(38:40):
going to need that much help. I may have taken
the train back to my folks house, or I may
have just walked the twenty miles or floated. The UPI
job worked out full time two months later, at the
first game I covered for money, I walked into the
press box at Shay Stadium and there was ed ingles
(39:03):
Thank god you went to you. The way Adler went
on about you, I seriously wondered if he was planning
to bring you in and kick me out. The Atlanta
offer Lou Adler arranged came, I turned it down. About
a year later, I got a call from Adler's assistant
saying they were going to need a new afternoon sportscaster
at WCBS and would I send a new tape. But
(39:23):
by that fall, when the job opened, Lou Adler was
leaving WCBS to become news director and vice president of
another New York radio station, wor his successor would choose
somebody else for the job. Just as I heard from
the people who ran the radio network that the WR
folks had started the year before, it was not coincidental
Lou Adler had sent these people starting this new network.
(39:46):
My tape there is inevitably from the distant future a punchline.
In two thousand and six or two thousand and seven,
when Countdown had become the highest rated cable news program
that wasn't on Fox, an email appeared in my inbox.
I could not leave the name of the sender, Lou Adler.
(40:09):
He began just as formally as he had in nineteen
seventy nine. He actually felt it was necessary to remind
me about his letter. He said he watched every night,
and when he found other viewers of the program, he
told them the story. Proudly, he said. He asked if
I remembered. I wrote back, immediately, remembered. Remembered. I told
(40:29):
him I still had his letter, and I still had
the sense of confidence it had given me that it
was central to my decision to more or less give
up my sports career. At the age of thirty eight,
and try news, and I told him the whole driving
back to Ithaca and the snow tire story, just for fun.
Lou wrote back again within minutes. He had just retired
after running the mass communications program at Quinnipiac College, and
(40:52):
he said he had a strong sense of his career
having been the proverbial punch into a pail of water.
Now it was my turn to reassure him that the
people like me who he had supported and taught and
broadcast too, had long since begun to support and teach
the next generation, and that generation was already supporting the
(41:12):
one after that. And there would be people in this
business beginning their careers after both of us were dead
who would owe a debt of gratitude, whether or not
they knew it to Lou Adler, as I always will.
Lou Adler died five years ago at the age of
eighty eight. There are letters and photos in the hallway
(41:35):
that leads in from the front door of my home.
They are from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden,
and Lou Adler. I've done all the damage I can
(42:03):
do here. Thank you for listening. Count On Musical Directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneale arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Produced
by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports
(42:24):
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and
fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Faust. The best baseball
stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend John Deem.
Everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
this the two hundred and seventeenth day until the twenty
(42:47):
twenty four presidential election, but one one hundred and eighty
fourth day since dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
Fourteenth Amendment, use the not regularly given elector objection option,
use the Insurrection Act, used the justice system, use the
mental health system to stop him from doing it again
(43:09):
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow again,
it might not happen. It might be abridged, depending on
this routine medical procedure. If the hospital issues a bulletin,
don't look for a new addition tomorrow. Otherwise, bulletins is
the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning,
(43:33):
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(43:53):
Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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